


take the bad stuff out

by Mr_Phich



Series: everyone needs a chance to be small [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bed-Wetting, Childhood Trauma, Daddy!Steve, Diapers, Feeding, Food Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Sexual Age Play, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Past Child Abuse, Past Neglect, little!Clint, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_Phich/pseuds/Mr_Phich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Clint told Steve about his childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take the bad stuff out

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This story contains explicit descriptions of child abuse (in this case, violence towards a child from a guardian) and neglect (withholding of food, basic cleanliness, and other necessities) as well as violent inter-sibling relationships, non-intentional neglect due to extreme poverty, and neglectful/abusive foster and biological parents. 
> 
> Everything that is brought up in this fic is addressed elsewhere in the series. I wrote this piece as a character building exercise for myself. Some of you have expressed interest in knowing more about Clint's background so I've decided to share it. Please be gentle with yourselves! If this is not a fic you can read, I will see you next time for your regular dose of fluff.

_ If we had hinges on our heads _

_ There wouldn’t be no sin, _

_ ‘Cause we could take the bad stuff out _

_ And leave the good stuff in. _   
  


Sometimes Clint liked to take his shirt off when he was hanging around big at Steve’s. It wasn’t sexual or showing off, it was just. Steve didn’t stare. Steve never fucking stared - not when he was little or big. He acted like Clint’s scars were perfectly normal. (Clint knew they weren’t, okay?  He’d seen other SHIELD agents, he’d seen Natasha - his aren’t that.) It wasn’t like Phil who just ignored them, because Steve would touch them, sometimes he even asked, but his voice was always so fucking steady that Clint would feel like it was okay and if Clint didn’t wanna say anything Steve wouldn’t ask again.

And it felt oddly nice, to lie on the couch with Steve reading to him and one of Steve’s fingers gently tracing his scars, gentle, not pushing, not asking - just accepting. So yeah, sometimes when he needed that - to know that he was accepted, he would take his t-shirt off when he was there.

Steve was tracing his fingers around the outline of a splotchy burn scar on Clint’s left hip and looking up book recommendations on his tablet with the other hand. Clint remembered that scar clearly.

“Was my ma,’” he said, soft.

“Hmm?” Steve hummed gently, fingers pausing momentarily. He put his tablet down but didn’t ask. He just let Clint be and god, it was somethin’ else. Steve just waiting to hear these things Clint couldn’t fucking talk about, because it was pain and shit and life and if you saw this, it felt like you could see just how fucked up Clint was, see down to the itty bitty broken parts at the core of him. Steve just let Clint drop those shattered, bloody pieces in his hands and held them. Clint didn’t really know what to do with that.

“She didn’t usually, y’know. Hurt. She was just, not really there a lot. Y’know? Either she was depressed and drunk or she was manic, and runnin’ all over town and buyin’ stuff we didn’t have the money for - and. She was manic, then. She’d gotten this fancy electric tea kettle, and she was so fuckin’ excited about it. I was - six maybe? I dunno. And I - I got home from school. I’d had a -” Clint blushed, though he didn’t know why. Steve had seen him piss his pants that fuckin’ week - he wasn’t gonna suddenly decide Clint was gross cause he’d wet himself all those years ago, when it was still kinda normal. Gently, Steve stroked his hair and continued the warm pressure on his skin. And Clint was safe, he was really fuckin safe right now, maybe for the first time. “I’d wet myself, and the school made me wear the clothes all day. They were stained and I stank. Barney’d been makin’ fun the whole way home, and I walked into our trailer and she just fuckin’ lost it. She was - was so mad, said I’d dirty up her clean house and why couldn’t I be more like Barney cause he never fuckin’ pissed himself. And she had that electric tea kettle going and she said she was gonna clean me up and - “

Clint stopped, shuddering. The pattern and pace of Steve’s hands didn’t change. Clint couldn’t see Steve’s face and he knew that Steve hurt for him, when Clint said these things, but mostly Steve just held ‘em and they didn’t feel so heavy.

“I started to run, turned away, so she only got my hip and uh, my ass. She realized what she’d done - Pa’ never felt sorry, y’know, but Ma’ she’d just get real mad for an instant and then come down. She took me to the ‘mergency room, claimed the water fell. I think she taught herself to believe that. I had t’be in the burn unit for a while. Dunno how long.”

Steve shifted, but only so he could pull Clint a little closer. He started telling Clint’s favorite story, ‘bout the rabbit that turned real cause someone loved him. Clint had asked for it so often that Steve had it memorized. Steve didn’t stop touching him and Clint relaxed into Steve, feelin’ a little lighter.

*

“I’m gonna cook for you tonight,” Clint declared, standing outside Steve’s door. Steve hid a smile. Clint looked in between to his eye, not quite big or little, but somewhere inbetween.

“You cook?” Steve asked, teasing gently as he stepped back to let Clint in. As far as he could remember, Clint always ordered in on his nights to provide dinner.

Clint wiggled, which was all little Clint, and flushed a bit. “Not really. But then I realized that you’ve probably never had Chef Boyardee and that’s just a crime. Barney and I lived off this crap ‘til, well, til we went to the foster homes. Anyway! I went out and got enough even for you!” Clint proudly held up a paper bag. It clinked - canned food. Steve didn’t miss that but he never said no to Clint sharing any part of his childhood.

“Alright,” Steve laughed. Clint beamed and tugged Steve into the kitchen and pushed him into the seat and went about opening six cans of the stuff - spagettios, Clint called them. It sort of looked cereal in tomato soup to Steve, but he held his tongue.

“This shit never goes bad,” Clint explained as he poured can after can into a pot. “Like, ever. So we’d get a bunch when it was on sale and Barney would make it last as long he could. Cause me and him could split one, when we were little, and we got school lunch. We’d eat it for weeks at a time, and Barney always kept a couple extra cans just in case times got hard, y’know? Or when ma got real manic and spent all the food money. If it was really bad we could have the saucey part for one meal and o’s for another meal. I could cook this when I was like, four.” Clint said proudly.

Steve swallowed back sorrow and nostalgia. He remembered stretching canned foods to make ‘em last as long as possible, or thinning out porridge when things were particularly tough. It made him hurt in a different way to hear Clint talk about his experiences with the same, though - Steve hated that people still went hungry in America these days. It just didn’t make any sense to him. He made a mental note to donate his next couple SHIELD paychecks to a foodbank.

Clint scooped two generous servings into bowls and put them down on the table, plopping spoons in after. He took a giant bite. Clint’s face fell. He swallowed tightly and put the spoon down slowly.

Steve reached out to grab his boy’s hand, squeezing gently. Clint swallowed again as his eyes teared up.

“I - I dunno, it’s -” Clint looked honestly bewildered by his emotional reaction.

“I’m glad you wanted to share something from your childhood with me, bud. I’m glad to know that there are things you remember fondly. When you’re hungry, just knowin’ you can eat tastes good. I know how that is.”

“I, yeah,” Clint swiped his hands under his eyes to rub the tears away. “We used to eat it so long it would make me sick. I’d get these awful stomach cramps and - but I didn’t. I was grateful.”

“I know you were, baby,” Steve soothed. “Things change and now you can eat whatever you want. I’ve got some rainbow rolls in the fridge and maybe some moose tracks ice cream for dessert, whaddya think?”

Clint nodded and Steve swept away the failed meal.

Maybe tomorrow he and Clint could cook together.

*

Clint sat shyly on the bed, face hidden in his knees. He could hear Daddy movin’ around, openin’ the closet door and such. They’d been talking ‘bout Clint tryin’ diapers for a while now. Daddy never forced him, but sometimes the pull ups leaked, which was really embarrassing. Daddy always said it was because Clint was such a squirmy lovebug while he was asleep, he just moved around too much and that it wasn’t Clint’s fault but Clint felt like it was his fault anyway.

They were gonna try the diapers tonight, cause last night the pull up leaked real bad (Daddy had needed a shower and Clint had cried).

“I’ve got two choices, buddy, can you look up and see?” Clint peeked his eyes up over his knees. One of the diapers Daddy was holding immediately caught his attention - it was patterned with  _ spaceships. _ Which was, just, really cool. The other one was just white. Clint knew which one he wanted, but it was babyish. White would look more like underwear, and that’s what he was supposed to wear.

He started to cry. Daddy sat down right next to him and wrapped his arm around him tight.

“Oh, buddy. What’s a matter?” Clint didn’t know, he just shook his head, and he tried to think and -

“When I was really little, a kid for real, I used ta’ -” Clint blushed and Daddy made an encouraging little noise, so Clint tried to keep talking “Like I do, at night. For a long time. A  _ really  _ long time,” Clint admitted shyly. Daddy just squeezed tighter. “Pa used to spank me, but that was -- it wasn’t so bad, really, cause I knew it was comin’. But one of the foster moms - I, she, she would just make me sleep in it night after night. She wouldn’t let me wash or nothin’. I always smelled like pee at school. I lived with them for, I dunno, maybe six months, and the mattress started getting weird and fallin’ apart, so their were spokes stickin’ me all night. I was so tired and I was scared all the time, so I tried to - I wrapped myself in a towel one night. And she got so mad, so, so, so mad. She didn’t hurt, but she screamed and screamed and called the social worker and she made me sit in the towels til’ my worker got there and, Daddy,” Clint whimpered, turning his face into Daddy’s chest, “she wouldn’t let me get up use the bathroom, she made me go in the towel. My worker didn’t come for hours and hours and hours and it was -” Clint shuddered.

Daddy scooped him up into his lap. Daddy was crying, Clint could see. Clint was crying too.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Clint. Daddy wishes he could have been there to make sure that never happened to you. But I want you to know that I will always change you just as soon as I can and you can always, always take a diaper off for any reason. And I love you so so so much, Clint. I don’t have enough words to tell you how much I love you.”

Clint tucked his thumb into his mouth. He knew Daddy would never do things like that, but it was nice to hear Daddy tell him anyway.

“Y’love me even though m’squirmy and need diapers?” Clint checked.

“Yes, because you’re my perfect little lovebug, squirmy, or diapered, or silly, or sad.”

“Love you too, Daddy.”

*

“Those are from the circus,” Clint murmured. Steve was giving him a massage, which was a little weird somehow. Steve and he touched (a lot) when Clint was little, and they touched more than most guys friends did when he was big. But it was at a different level when Clint was lying nude on Steve’s bed, face down, and Steve was gently massaging him from head to foot. They’d had a couple really hard days of fighting and Steve said that Clint deserved it, but. Well, it was just kinda weird to have such intimate touch with no strings attached - like, Steve didn’t even expect a massage in return.

Steve was working on the back of his thighs, which were tight and knotted from tryin’ to keep up with the rest of the team (besides Stark, he was the only totally unenhanced guy and that just wasn’t fucking fair). Steve, like he often did, had stroked each scar with a fingertip when he came across them.

“The swordsman, guy who trained me in archery, he used to use this willow switch. He’d stand behind me when I shot and every time I didn’t hit the target he’d hit me. We’d go until my pants were shredded and there was blood running down the back of my knees. Stopped missin’ shots.”

Steve did a little twist with his thumb, and a muscle loosened unexpectedly. Clint sighed out the tension.

*

Steve offered up his plate. Clint gladly spooned another bite into his mouth. Couple years ago (hell, a couple months ago) he wouldn’t have been able to imagining just sharing his plate with somebody like this. Sometimes it still felt a little hard, but then Steve would just randomly show up with a cookie, and like wow. Steve made fucking good cookies. He knew Steve was workin’ him and he just didn’t care. Steve had some serious fucking cooking skills. And according to his latest SHIELD checkup, Clint’s still got ten more pounds to put on before he’s at his Pre-Loki weight. So, uh, yeah. Feed him up, Steve.

“There was this one foster home,” Clint said, sorta absently. He didn’t know how it happened, but with Steve Clint could just finally talk about this shit. Everytime, he discovered, didn’t have to be an emotional scene or heartbreak. Sometimes they didn’t even talk about what he’d said. And now, he’d just find himself sharing this shit. It was weird. Weird, but good. Felt less lonely in his head. “Kept the fridge and pantry all locked up. We were only allowed to eat certain times of the day - breakfast and dinner, usually, cause they kept us out on the fields most of the day, doin’ chores and shit. I was real little, then. Was one of my first - I must have been seven? Barney was still with me, then, too. I was the littlest of the bunch - that family liked ‘em big so they could do more work. They used to just take my food. The foster parents wouldn’t do nothin’ about it they saw. Even Barney didn’t help - he was just as hungry as the rest of us were, I guess, didn’t want to bring any more attention down on him. Sometimes it would be days til I got my hand on a proper meal. Remember just bein’ always hungry.”

Steve handed him the plate again and got up and started rooting through the cupboards.

“What’re you doin’?” Clint asked around a mouthful.

“Making brownies.”

Shit, Clint would share whatever the fuck Steve wanted.

*


End file.
